Is Wachete free? Yes, with limits, and what else to try

Is Wachete free? Yes. Wachete has a free plan that monitors 5 regular pages and 1 dynamic page, checked once a day, with no credit card. Wachete presents it as a plan, not a trial, and lists no end date. What it leaves out is speed, scale and a few features: hourly checks start at $5.40 a month, and login pages need a paid plan. If the free plan is too limited, the alternative we would point to first is AyeWatch, for the reasons below.

What the free plan includes

From Wachete's own site and price list, checked in October 2026:

• 5 static pages and 1 dynamic page (one that loads its content with JavaScript).
• One check a day per page.
• Wachete's cloud runner, so nothing has to stay open on your computer.
• No card at sign-up.

What it does not include

• Faster checks. Hourly checks start on Starter, $5.40 a month for 50 pages. Every 10 minutes starts on Standard, $10.90 a month.
• Login pages. Monitors that sign in before reading a page start on Standard.
• Files. Reading text in PDF, Word and Excel files starts on Premium, $54.90 a month.

So for a handful of pages where a day's delay is fine, the free plan is enough. For anything time-sensitive, it is not.

Is there a better free option?

That depends on what "better" means for you.

• More free monitors: Distill's free plan holds 25 monitors, though only 5 run in its cloud, at a 6-hour interval. The rest need your browser open.
• Free with no limits but your own hardware: changedetection.io is open source and free to self-host.
• Fewer, clearer alerts: AyeWatch.

AyeWatch's free option is different in kind. The Free Preview gives three lifetime monitoring runs across up to three topics, daily or slower, with no card. It is a trial, not a free plan: the runs do not renew. What you are testing is whether alerts judged by meaning beat alerts judged by changed text.

Why AyeWatch is the answer for most people leaving Wachete

The usual reason people leave Wachete is not price. It is getting alerts for changes they do not care about, such as a new date at the top of a page, a rotated banner, or a sentence reworded without changing what it says.

AyeWatch handles that by asking for the rule in plain words. Paste a URL, or several, and write something like "Tell me when the visa fee or the processing time changes." It checks each change against that sentence and alerts with a short summary only when it fits. It can also watch a topic across more than a billion sources and on social platforms like X, Reddit and YouTube, so you do not need to know which page will carry the news.

Paid plans start at $9 a month for Pro with hourly checks, and $19 for Pro+ with ASAP checks. Billing uses monitoring credits, so checking more often costs more. Push notifications and the in-app feed come with every plan; email, Slack, Discord, webhooks and the API need a paid one.

When to stay on Wachete's free plan

Stay if you watch five or fewer simple pages, a daily check is fast enough, and the alerts you get are ones you act on. It is a good free plan and there is no reason to move a setup that works.

Quick answers

For a fuller list of options, see the seven Wachete alternatives AyeWatch compared.